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If you have found a plan that works for you great, be confident in it and stick to it. But don't go around attacking very well established training principles in an attempt to mend the obvious insecurities that you seem to have with the plan you have prescribed to.

IN relation to the heart - stroke volume is limited by the pericardium. The heart is surrounded by a fibrous sac, "pericardium", which is resistant to stretching which limits vo2 max. This guy stops your heart from overfilling, which means it constrains stroke volume so impedes cardiac output, which constrains vo2 max. Prolonged attempts at stretching it or pushing it to its limit makes it give way somewhat, so this is what training for vo2 max essentially does (amongst other things).

Gross metabolic efficiency has only been found to improve at intensities around VO2max and greater (at this stage) . GME actually decreases with large volumes of low intensity exercise (but does yield other benefits).

You're welcome.

"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study.""I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

That is it? All that I typed and that is all you could come up with? That was not even from my original response, lol. I am sorry, but the only explanation I can come up with is that you question your training so you attack others WELL ESTABLISHED perspectives on training. Why else would anyone go to the trouble that you have gone to in two threads with two different people to read past all of the good information and pick out everything you think is wrong. Your insecure dude, hate to break it to you. The funny thing is I think our funimental perspective of a good training plan is maybe closer than you realize, you just can't get yourself to take the time and read. You are "that guy" who wears your badge of 2,000 posts like a Medal of Honor and will go to great lengths to patrol your forum from guys like me and whoever KW is. You try so hard that you don't actually read/comprehend what we are saying. I hate to break it to you though all of this won't make your training plan work better or FTP bigger. In fact I find it a bit ironic that you prescribe to this plan because of the limited time you have to train, yet you are wasting time debating on this forum.

you have some points. But you may want to stop stressing the fact some training methodologies are proven and established, especially when you seem to refer to SST type of approach. It is not well established and only has been popularized by the traning peaks empire in the past couple years. There is no scientific evidence supporting that kind of approach. In fact, there is little evidence supporting any training intensity distribution approach.

Longitudinal studies suggest a polarized approach appears to be optimal and used by most top level and elite athlete but there is more to it.

Again, there is many ways to build one's FTP, not only doing steady moderate efforts of moderate to long durations.

I am very careful to stress my opinion or my experience. I don't prescribe anything to anyone in fact in myself admitted that my own program is far more complex than just a SST approach, although I do follow that general outline during certain times of year (mainly now when it is -15 outside and I am stuck on the trainer). My whole point with everything was balance, and there is a place and time for ALL intensities.

I have tried many different approaches and experienced a lot. I have felt the difference in my recovery within workouts/races and between them when I have had a large block of aerobic base vs when I have not. I have seen the results in my racing and power #s. I have also put myself in such awful places I damn near hung everything up, and I know how I got there, so I will avoid that place at all cost.

Everyone is different though and these experiences made me better, smarter, and stronger. So, maybe finding ones own way is not such a terrible thing. But like I said earlier you have to stay structured enough that you know how you got to a bad place to never go back and a good place to get there again. Floundering between plans is not that way.

Bgoetz wrote: So, maybe finding ones own way is not such a terrible thing. But like I said earlier you have to stay structured enough that you know how you got to a bad place to never go back and a good place to get there again. Floundering between plans is not that way.

Oswald wrote:I think it depends on your experience. If you are a novice rider, then you need to do base training before any sprint training. But if you've been riding for 15 years, then you probably have done more then enough base training...

That is not true, things don't work that way. Unless you are a track racer or doing 45min crits you are going to find yourself fading at the end of a race if you neglect some form of base in your training. I actually notice this throughout the season, come July/August my endurance starts to fade a bit and then I repeat a block of base type training for my fall build as I approach a couple key MTB races. Admittedly, I do race with a few guys who have been around for a while that maybe don't need to work quite as hard at building base as I do on younger legs, but these guys are exceptions to the norm. Plus they are former euro-pros/national champions who have been to hell and back 5 times over, their untrained talent is still enough to compete just nicely in our regional Pro/1/2 races, so they don't really count.

Most tour professionals who do this for a living actually still prescribe to the old fashion LSD method, where you ride 30hrs a week at a endurance pace for a couple of months to build a solid base. Those of us who actually have a life outside of a bike don't have that time, so a SST plan is the most practical for us to train IMO. There are lots of "working pros" who go through the off-season with a very steady diet of just 2x20s. Based on my experienced you can't short cut the system, tabattas and stuff like that may make you one of the fast guys at Tuesday night worlds, or may make you a decent Cat 4/5, but if you really want to do things right you have to put in the time. These are just my opinions, but I think that most experienced racers would agree with what I have to say.

That last paragraph can't be more wrong at least judging by the training insight I've gotten from a few WT friends. They might ride 30hrs, but it sure as hell ain't all traditional LSD. Unless motorpacing, threshold work, etc are all part of "LSD".

To the OP- you can work NM year round no problem, but what preference it takes depends on the time of the year. I like to do a small amount of it during the winter as I find that very specific types of work simply make it easier to get back into the race rhythm. Also, for me, a huge weakness is surging and recovering at hard efforts. Improving my FTP drastically helped a bit, but in the end the biggest help was very specific NM work in a somewhat fatigued state (microbursts at the end of hard rides) or adding NM efforts to tempo/SST/FTP efforts. A bit different than all-out sprint work, but again when I actually do sprint workouts it seems I spend a lot less time "getting back to where I was" if that makes sense. Maintraining, rather than training. FWIW, this stuff (for me) comes back a lot faster than any other training level. Moreover, its hard for me to improve sprint capacity during base (in terms of max watts) simply because I'm not fresh enough most of the time so I focus on things such as leg speed, small ring sprints, NM efforts (sprint in huge gear up to 90rpms, HA claims it helps with fiber recruitment), and sprint starts (doing sprints at 90% of max after an effort of some sort, usually tossed on to the end of intervals).

While I agree with trying different things out, that entire process of trial by fire doesn't really have to be that way. I've been through it myself (ironically when I was paying Peaks for top level coaching), but having been to hell and back with that its quite simple. Had I not spend a lot of last Fall actually reading and talking to various WT-level coaches and physiologists I probably would have kept beating my head in with ideas that, as DeVinci said, have never been scientifically proven anywhere. Using a bastardization of Lydiard's work isn't a training methodology, nor is it necessarily all that effective.

you have some points. But you may want to stop stressing the fact some training methodologies are proven and established, especially when you seem to refer to SST type of approach. It is not well established and only has been popularized by the traning peaks empire in the past couple years. There is no scientific evidence supporting that kind of approach. In fact, there is little evidence supporting any training intensity distribution approach.

Longitudinal studies suggest a polarized approach appears to be optimal and used by most top level and elite athlete but there is more to it.

Again, there is many ways to build one's FTP, not only doing steady moderate efforts of moderate to long durations.